


His Light

by superfluffycool



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22019035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluffycool/pseuds/superfluffycool
Summary: The Darkling wants Alina for much more than her power.
Relationships: The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov
Kudos: 91





	His Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is an expansion of Bardugo's original text. 
> 
> I am really liked the relationship between Alina and The Darkling because it was so complex. He initially wants to use her and her power, but he also yearns for her love after so many centuries of loneliness. I took passages from the books and then flipped them to show The Darkling's perspective. Hope you enjoy :)

“Alina, if I tell you that I still believe we can find the stag, would you think I’m mad?”

“Why would you care what I think?”

He was genuinely baffled. “I don’t know,” he said, “But I do.”

And then he kissed her.

_It happened so suddenly that I barely had time to react. One moment, I was staring into his slate-colored eyes, and the next, his lips were pressed to mine. I felt that familiar sense of surety melt through me as my body sang with sudden heat and my heart jumped into a skittery dance. Then, just as suddenly, he stepped back. He looked as surprised as I felt._

\----  
He’d always planned to seduce her.

Centuries of practice in power and manipulation taught him that it was easier (and less messy) to win a woman’s loyalty this way. What he hadn’t planned was wanting her. 

She was not much to look at, a wisp of a thing at first - pale, thin. It was her ability that made him look closer. She was an orphan and he could see it in her eyes - there was a watchfulness, great pain, and yet immense self-posession. Her origins had wounded her, but they’d also made her a survivor.

Since that first meeting she’d blossomed at The Little Palace, glowing with strength and health from using her power and training with the other Grisha. But that wasn’t what possessed him. Late at night in his chambers, he’d catch himself drifting from military strategy to imagined conversations with her, telling her about his plans and deepest musings. He made long arguments for his plans, hoping to win her over. He thought she might be sympathetic to his cause. An orphan would understand better than anyone the value of peace. What did it matter how it was acquired? That she might not troubled him more than he cared to admit, even to himself.

His power and skill had kept him a young man with a young man’s appetites. It was amusing to play with the young, beautiful Grisha that he saw day in and day out. They fawned over him and he often did nothing to entice them, but they came to him anyway, kneeling in supplication and surrendering their bodies to him. It grew boring eventually, and he would take advantage only out of need, not genuine desire for any of them. Their faces blurred his conquests were so many.

Legends abound about his gifts, but it wasn’t just that. He’d worked harder. Where the other Grisha students had friends, families to pull their attention, he’d had nothing but his mother, whispering stories of greatness and teaching him to rule. He’d had talent, oh yes, but he became so powerful because he’d also had nothing else.

No one understood. But maybe, just maybe, Alina could.

She was his hope, his light. She’d be a tool to help him destroy The Fold, his deepest shame, but she could possibly be his balance, his Queen. He was powerful and so he did not ultimately need her to do any of it willingly, but..but this power had made the centuries so lonely. His fantasies about her came in multiple colors - in some, he would place the stag’s antlers around her neck and her wrists in chains, in others, she would wear the collar with her hands free, their fingers entwined. The metaphor could also be the reality - she could bring light to his dark.

\---------------

, _The moment his lips met mine, the connection between us opened and I felt his power flood through me. I could feel how much he wanted me--but behind that desire, I could feel something else, something that felt like anger._

It had been so long since he’d felt anything like it that he didn’t understand what was happening.

She pulled away from his kiss, “You don’t want to be doing this.”

“This is the only thing I want to be doing,” he growled.

He stopped and took in her expression, a mixture of worry and...What else? He did want to be here. This was no longer a game of seduction or a way to quench his physical thirst. He wanted her. He wanted to possess her, but he also wished to worship her. For the first time in his very long life, he dropped to his knees before a woman. “Alina,” he sighed. The desire made her name come out in a wobbly breath. “Alina…” He brought his fingertips to the bare skin of her ankles and felt the connection open between them. She sighed. He let his fingertips travel upward, keeping his eyes locked on her own. “Unbutton your kefta.” She did so, not hesitating. “Open it.” He placed his face against the smooth skin of her chest. The connection between them blossomed out, more and more as they became one. His breath caught imagining their bodies out of their keftas and flush against each other. 

“You hate that.”

He closed his eyes, suddenly in pain. “Maybe I do.”

She shivered, letting her head fall back against the painted wall. “Why?”

“Why?” he repeated, his fingers sliding up to her collarbone, “Alina, do you know what Ivan told me before we took the stage? Tonight, we received word that my men have spotted Morozova’s heard. The key to the Shadow Fold is finally within our grasp, and right now, I should be in the war room hearing their report. I should be planning our trip north. But I’m not, am I?” He felt a throbbing between his legs and he stood, bringing his hand around her neck and pressing his thumb into her throat, “Am I?” She gripped his hair and tilted her head back, opening to him even more. There was that urge, suddenly, the one that pressed him to share his deepest thoughts to her. “The problem with wanting,” he whispered, hitching her leg up and grinding his hips into hers, “is that it makes us weak.”

He kissed her, hard. Her lips would be bruised and he’d likely need to fetch a several servants to make her presentable afterwards, but he didn’t care. She was whimpering, now, struggling to undo the buttons of his own kefta so that nothing lay between them. He paused to help her and then ease into this unfamiliar territory, testing the power of this new connection. The jolt was electric and he heard his own groan mix with her sounds of pleasure.

She was the one he’d been waiting for. All these years, she’d been his destiny.


End file.
